Question

I need to grab the first 4 characters of two input values (if entered), and string them together and insert them into a third input as the default value of the input. I have this working except for grabbing the first four characters (right now it’s grabbing the whole value, which could be a quite long airport name).

js fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/4byPJ/

//insert to and from values as the default seach name
$("#from").change(function() {
    $("#nameSearch").val($("#from").val() + " to " + $("#to").val());
});
$("#to").change(function() {
    $("#nameSearch").val($("#from").val() + " to " + $("#to").val());
});
<fieldset class="itineraryBlock">
        <legend>Itinerary</legend>

        <div class="fromFields">
          <label for="from">From:</label>
          <input type="text" name="from" id="from" class="airportField" />
        </div>
        <div class="toFields">
          <label for="to">To:</label>
          <input type="text" name="to" id="to" class="airportField" />
          </div>
</fieldset>
<fieldset class="saveSearch">
        <legend>Do you want to save this search?</legend>
        <input type="radio" id="yes" value="yes" name="saveSearch" checked="checked" />
        <label for="yes">Yes</label>
        <input type="radio" id="no" value="no" name="saveSearch" />
        <label for="no">No</label>
        <div class="nameSearchBlock">
          <label for="nameSearch">Name your search:</label>
          <input type="text" id="nameSearch" name="nameSearch" />
        </div>
        <!-- nameSearch -->
      </fieldset>

Answer 1

This should do the trick:

http://jsfiddle.net/4byPJ/3/

You can use the .substring() function to change the string to only include the first 4 characters :).